Milennium Wood & Muggins Wood walk

Sunday afternoon and a wander up Brick Kiln Hill, past Muggins Wood and on to Millennium Wood. My camera batteries were flat so I anticipated something unusual offering superb photo opportunities and, typically, this was indeed the case. In the hedgerow before Muggins Wood I spotted a 4 spotted chaser dragonfly. A first for the area and even more infuriatingly It permitted me views down to 50 cm!! What superb photos I would have had. I include a couple here from the Internet to show the wonderful colours of this medium sized dragonfly. The specimen I observed was more orange than the 2 depicted here, showing it to be an immature insect, probably having only emerged from the pond or stream in the previous 48 hours.Also new for the insect list was a male large skipper. This was next to the "pond" at Millennium Wood. A check to identify a skipper species recorded near Queer Wood earlier in the week proved it was, as expected, a dingy skipper.
A blue tailed damselfly was also recorded at Millennium Wood. On the bird front, all the regulars were present, with a chiffchaff calling in Chapel Lane and several swallows feeding over the polo fields adjacent to Hoecroft Lane. A willow warbler sang in Millennium Wood. A pair of kestrels hunted along the flanks of Brick Kiln Hill, probably siblings from a successful breeding earlier in the year. In all 27 species of birds were recorded on this short walk. A potato leafhopper (eupteryx aurata) was also discovered on stinging nettles along Hoecroft Lane. An abundant little bug, it can cause damage to potato crops by puncturing their leaves and destroying the chlorophyll with its toxic saliva! I also include a poor photo of a peacock butterfly to show the amount of damage their wings can receive. This damage is normally inflicted by birds having a snap at them, but may also happen during territorial fights with other males. This particular specimen looks to have been around a while, probably emerging in late April.